History

From 1998 until today

The Virtual Reality group was founded in 1998, when also the head of the institute for mechanical engineering changed and the institute was renamed into ‘Center for Product Development’ (ZPE). In the same year, Virtual Reality also realized the visualization center of ETH Zurich – the VisDome – and set up the installation in the dome of the famous Semper building of ETH Zurich. Since that time, the group also runs this installation.

From the very beginning, the group also offered the lecture ‘Virtual Reality’ with a special focus on implementing this technology into industrial business processes. Due to the great acceptance from the students, the lecture was successively developed and is now offered in two lecture periods.

In 2003, the group changed over to the Institute for Machine Tools and manufacturing (IWF) within the same department at ETH Zurich. It is continuing there its responsibilities in research and education.